Reflections on Intentional Communities

I had two opportunities to interact with intentional communities last month; one as an observer and one as a participant.

I am taking a second round of facilitation training for communities, this time with Laird Schaub, who originated the two-year program. (Regular readers may remember that I did seven sessions with Tree Bressen in 2006 and 2007.) We had our second weekend together, and I am totally hooked on the high of being with 18 other people who are just as passionate about facilitating in communities as I am. I am also really amazed at all of the community-oriented activities that are happening in Asheville, NC.

Over the course of this, I got to observe a cohousing meeting. They were discussing what they could do with a plot of garden to grow more of their own food. First we had them visualize the garden five years down the road. Then they spent a long time brainstorming, and we had two scribes noting everything down. They were a pretty savvy group, and ended up covering all of the bases that a permaculture consultant would have addressed. I know this because DH and I recently had permaculture consultants develop a plan for our yard.

As the brainstorming wore on, I found myself thinking "why don't they just hire an expert and be done with it?" Which is not like me, as I have a high tolerance for brainstorming-type of activities. But 45 minutes pushed even my limits. However, I thought about a basic principle of organizational communication that I learned years ago: participation = buy in. The ideas they generated were their ideas, not somebody else's, who was telling them what to do.

The next part of the meeting was very lively. Our scribes cut up all of the flip chart pages so that each idea was on its own strip. Then we spread them all out, face up, on the floor. In the next 14 minutes, the cohousers put them into clusters. They moved the strips around, looked at what they had done, discussed, argued, negotiated, and moved them again. Then the facilitator had them review each cluster one more time, and come up with a label for that cluster. This exercise is called "snow cards" or "blizzard" because all of the white pieces of paper blanket the floor or wall like snow.

Now the clusters were manageable, and the group figured out where they would start, and who would shepherd the process until they figured out exactly how it would continue. The whole thing took three hours, and they were very satisfied with the work they got done. And how much fun they had.

Meanwhile, I was at the back of the room scribbling notes about the structures the group had and processes they were using to make this kind of decision. Another principle of organizational communication is that structures influence behavior. However, most people don't think about this when they are frustrated with the way somebody is acting. They usually attribute it to a deficit in that person. So it can be very useful to look at the structures and processes, and make sure they are aligned with the organizations purpose, values, and assumptions.

What I have learned from Laird and Tree and Diana Leaf Christian is that there are some very specific recommendations they make for intentional communities, gleaned from their years of experience living in and facilitating them. And as they haven't published their books on this topic yet (ahem!) I am creating my own process maps. Ultimately I am hoping that we can create an open source library of these maps that communities use, so that they can diagnose problems and don't have to reinvent the wheel.

I'll talk about my other adventures next time.

PS. Happy New Year!

19 months later: Back in the saddle

Hi everyone,

After a 19-month sabbatical, I am rejoining the blogosphere. I look forward to discovering the new faces and voices in the green- and communities- arenas. I'm guessing that there will be more than I can keep up with, but I will make a stab at it!

I think back to the day of my last post with a lot of emotion. We were disappointed by the turnout at our StepItUp event--Obama decided to have a rally at Georgia Tech the same day, and 20,000 people showed up for it! Even our own organizers snuck off to participate in that historic event. Now, of course, I wish I was one of them.

How far we have come since then. On so many levels. The Atlanta Beyond Oil Meetup Group, which sometimes only had three people at the meetings "back in the day," is now very popular. JoJo has done a fabulous job of hosting the meetings at his beautiful home. The last time I was there, he showed me where he was expanding the garden. It was inspiring.

I feel like there has be a shift in consciousness... not only at the political level, but also in my own circle of friends and aquaintences. People understand the importance of sustainability. There certainly has been one in myself.

I have spent the last several years learning how to facilitate in communities, because I believe that this is where I can make the greatest contribution--creating an environment that supports people in having the conversations about the issues that challenge their communities. I believe that change is going to happen in communities, not only because relocalizing makes sense, but because human beings are community-oriented beings, and working at this level will satisfy a fundamental need.

I have been exploring forms of facilitation and meeting design that I believe are cutting edge, and embody the values and principles that I hold dear--maximum freedom, maximum choice, self-organization, respect, inclusion of the emotions and the intuition, right and left brains, as well as all learning styles, and trusting the wisdom of the group.

On the home front, we put in a garden this summer, and hired Isabel and Bob from Georgia Permaculture to walk our land and give us a plan for developing it using permaculture principles. DH has been studying David Blume's work about distilling alcohol for fuel, and we are hoping to start program, either on our acerage, or nearby.

So I will slowly be revising the links on the blog to reflect my new pursuits, and sharing what I learn along the way. I also see that Blogger has some new features, so I might be incorporating those as well.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to connecting!